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Category Archive: Land Navigation

Photo by Calsidyrose. Used under Creative Commons. You’ve been following the yellow dirt road for hours. A few miles back you left the wicked wolf of the West crushed underneath a huge boulder that came flying off the ledge of a nearby cliff. Now you’re faced with the unfortunate truth that you’re lost in the wild. No …

There have been many great posts about land navigation on this website, some written by authors who have far more experience stomping around in the woods than I do. Today I wanted to take a moment to “drill down” and focus on one very important skill: How to Orient a Map. Here is a great …

We’ve all seen it touted out there, that during any type of bugout scenario one should only move at night, as in moving during daylight hours is completely off the table as an option. Wrong. Not only will that course of action probably cause one more trouble than it’s worth, it would increases the probability …

Being able to calculate distance traveled while on foot is a critical skill, it could literally mean the difference between life and death given the right set of circumstances. Imagine that the proverbial SHTF has occurred and you now have 7 days to link up with your group at a predetermined location 90 miles from your home. …

By The Maj In a discussion the other day concerning the GPS, I opened my big mouth and mentioned “the proper way to do that would be…”. An additional comment got me to thinking about how reliant we have become on modern technology and the pretty much lost or dying art of navigating using celestial …

By Chris at Simplyhike.co.uk The days of navigation solely via a compass and paper map are gone, having moved over for GPS devices and smartphone apps. GPS technology has grown so much in the last decade that the publication of paper maps has dwindled, and traditional map publishers are turning to digital maps.In many ways, digital maps and GPS technology have improved …

It’s very easy to get lost while in the woods, or for that matter just about anywhere. I have been lost many times and am not ashamed to admit it. Getting lost is the easy part and can be accomplished through complacency, overconfidence or just poor dumb luck. There have been times where I was …

Topographical maps are a great resource and will become absolutely invaluable if T-SHTF. Topo maps allow you to do so much more than your standard road atlas in that you can accurately plot routes (if on foot with a compass), estimate elevation and easily identify major terrain features around your homestead. Recently Ranger W. wrote an outstanding …

By Ranger W. It takes 62 days (or more for us recycles) to learn the Ranger School standard for moving through the woods. Ranger students spend many days “patrolling” through the woods, mountains, and swamps of the southeastern US. For those who think they might need to move through some out-of-town terrain in a shorter period …

By Ranger W. If you found your way to this site you would probably love to be living in southern Idaho on 100 acres that is further separated by natural terrain barriers to protect your little family homestead from all the looters and crazies. If you are reading this you are probably far more like …